Murder Befalls Us

by Patti Benning

  “I’ll talk to him about it,” Angie promised, only half paying attention. “Do you mind if I take a short break? I want to call my brother. Percy was a friend of his, you know.”

  “Of course, dear. Take as long as you need. It doesn’t look like we’re very busy at the moment.”

  She grabbed the diner’s landline and sat down at a stool in the nook where the employees kept their things. It wasn’t very private, but it was the best she could do. She dialed her parents’ phone — her brother’s cell phone didn’t get great service at the house — and waited for her mother to get Jason on the line. She told him the news.

  “They decided that already?” He sounded irritated. “I knew we should have taken the note to them.”

  Angie sighed. Lydia had been the one to insist that they didn’t involve the police with the threat. She didn’t want to cause any more trouble than was necessary, and had apparently watched one too many television dramas where calling the police was the wrong thing to do. In Angie’s book, calling the police was the only thing to do when one received a death threat.

  “It’s not too late,” she said. “You could still bring it to them. I wish we hadn’t all handled it so much. They might have been able to get finger prints off of it.”

  “I’ll talk to Lydia,” he said. “But if they already closed the case, I’m not sure if it will matter. They’ll probably wonder why we didn’t give it to them earlier.”

  Well, they’d be right, she thought, but she didn’t say it. Her brother had just reunited himself with the family, and she didn’t want to chance driving him away again. “I guess it’s up to you. Let me know what they say if you do bring it in.”

  “I will,” he promised.

  Angie heard the bell over the diner’s door ring. Betty hurried out of the kitchen to seat whoever had come in. “I should get going,” she said. “I’m at work. I’ll see you later tonight.”

  “See you, Ange. Thanks for letting me know about Percy.”

  They said their goodbyes and she put the phone back in the cradle. Not a second later, Betty came bustling back through the door to the kitchen.

  “You’ve got two people out front wanting to see you,” she said. “One of them looks very distraught. Take your time with them. I’ll get everyone waters.”

  Puzzled, Angie thanked her and hurried out into the dining area to find Maggie and Esme sitting side by side at a booth. Esme’s face was streaked with tears, and Maggie was trying to comfort her. She looked up when Angie approached, her expression turning relieved.

  “Thank goodness. I didn’t know where else to bring her.”

  “What’s going on?” Angie asked.

  “She came into the police station and started yelling at everyone,” Maggie said. “She was so upset when she heard her husband’s death was ruled an accident. I left early to bring her here and try to help her calm down.”

  “Esme?” Angie said softly. “Can I get you anything? Would you like some tea?”

  The other woman nodded tearfully. “Tea would be nice. Thank you.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Angie promised. “The three of us will talk about this. It will be okay, Esme. You’ve got two sympathetic ears at your disposal.”

  Angie returned with three cups of tea and the water that Betty had poured for them. She set the tray down on the table and took a seat across from Esme and Maggie. She was glad that the diner was relatively quiet; it gave them the chance to talk in peace.

  “Here you go,” she said. “It’s chamomile.”

  It took Esme a few minutes to calm down. She held the mug with tea in it in her hands as if it was keeping her alive, sipping it every few seconds and taking deep, shuddering breaths.

  “Sorry,” she whispered at last. “I’m so embarrassed. Thank you so much for getting me out of there before I got myself into trouble, Maggie.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I was happy to help. Do you want to talk about it?”

  The other woman shrugged. “I just feel so defeated. Someone killed Percy. I just know it. And now they’re going to walk free.”

  “Maybe not,” Angie said. She told the two women about the note Lydia had found. “Whoever did this is still out there, and still making threats.”

  “I just wish I knew who it was. Who could hate my husband enough to end his life?”

  Angie glanced at Maggie and bit her lip. Neither of them knew of her suspicions about Oliver. She knew that it might be smartest to keep her mouth shut, but it didn’t feel right keeping this sort of information from the grieving woman.

  “There’s one person who might have had a motive, and he would have had a chance to slip the note into Lydia’s coat pocket too,” she admitted. At the other two women’s questioning looks, she explained about Oliver. “It all lines up with him. If he heard that Percy was offering Jason the job, he might have been mad enough to confront Percy. If he lost his temper, he could have easily pushed him and caused him to fall. And he was at the diner when my brother and his fiancée stopped in. There would have been plenty of time for him to slip the note into her coat pocket. If he just accidentally killed someone, he might not have been thinking clearly.”

  “Even if it was an accident, he has to pay for it,” Esme said darkly. “I need to know the truth. I want to know why my husband was taken from me before his time.”

  “I don’t know how we could do any snooping ourselves,” Angie said hesitantly. “I mean, we can’t just go ask Oliver if he killed someone.”

  “Do you know where he works?”

  “He’s a teacher at the school. Why?”

  “That means we know where he’ll be. It would be very easy to find him and ask him just that.”

  “I don’t mean that we physically can’t ask him, I mean that it wouldn’t be… right.” Angie was regretting bringing him up in the first place.

  “Well, it’s not right that he killed Percy!” Esme’s voice started to rise, and Maggie put a hand on her arm. She glanced at Angie.

  “We can at least go talk to him,” her friend said. “If he really is guilty, he might not react well to being confronted by Esme. Especially if it was an accident.”

  She hesitated, but eventually agreed. “All right. But not doing anything that might get us in trouble with the police. I know this is an emotional situation, but getting arrested won’t help anything. And we’ll have to wait until I’m done with my shift. It’s only about another hour, but I can’t leave early again. I’ll get you guys some food while you wait. Does that work?”

  The other two women nodded and Angie got up to get them menus. She had a feeling she was going to regret this, but she had never been great at saying no when someone really needed her help.

  14

  The two women were still waiting for her when Theo got there and Angie’s shift officially ended. She hurried to take off her apron and don her coat. She was sorely regretting agreeing to this — confronting a man at his place of work about a murder was a seriously bad idea, even if they didn’t outright accuse him — but she had a feeling that Esme, at least, would go with or without their help. If she and Maggie could play damage control, they might be able to keep the other woman from getting arrested, or hurt.

  “We can take my car,” she offered. “The school should be getting out in a couple of minutes. Then we can go in and see if we can find Oliver.”

  They agreed and piled into the van that Angie’s father had given her when she first arrived. The school wasn’t far from the center of town, and she ended up driving around the block twice until she saw buses lining up and students flooding the lawn. Lost Bay was small enough to have only one school for all grades, and the crowd of children was a controlled chaos. An old van idling in the parking lot while school was in session probably would have raised some red flags, and she definitely did not want to be responsible for the school going into lockdown.

  They waited until the buses had gone and most of the students had left before parking and getting ou
t of the van. Maggie led them to the front doors, and all three of them filed inside. The school had been updated somewhat since Angie had gone there, and she spent a moment looking around curiously. It all seemed so much smaller now.

  “Where’s the computer lab?” she asked Maggie.

  “Um, I think it’s this way. Josh doesn’t have that class, and I’ve only been here once for parent-teacher conferences. It feels weird being here without him. I feel kind of bad that he’s on his way to the sitter’s house, while I’m not even working.”

  They followed her down a hallway, and after a couple of wrong turns, found the computer lab. Angie had been half hoping that Oliver would have left as soon as his class let out, but he was sitting at the desk in the front of the room, working on something on his computer. He looked up when they came in and a puzzled expression crossed his face.

  “Can I help you?”

  Esme started forward, but Maggie put a hand on her arm and shook her head. Both women turned to look toward Angie, as if expecting her to take the lead. I didn’t even want to come here, she thought. Why did I let myself get dragged into this? And how on earth am I supposed to start this conversation?

  “Any luck with the job hunt?” she asked, saying the first thing that popped into her mind. Her voice came out way too cheery, and she winced.

  Oliver raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “No. And please keep your voice down. I don’t want the principal to hear that I’m looking for another job. He might decide to replace me before I’ve found one.”

  “Sorry.” She winced. “Um, I take it you’ve heard the news? The police ruled Percy’s death an accident.”

  “I saw it on the news this morning. I’m glad they solved that.”

  “They didn’t solve anything,” Esme said, apparently unable to keep quiet any longer. “I know he didn’t just slip and fall off that balcony. Someone pushed him.”

  Oliver stared at her, as if unsure what to say.

  “This was a bad idea,” Maggie said quietly.

  “No it wasn’t,” Esme snapped. She turned back to Oliver. “I know you killed him. Angie told me all about how upset you were that he wouldn’t give you a job you were unqualified for, and how you slipped that death threat into her brother’s fiancée’s pocket. It’s just pure luck on your part that they didn’t decide to take that note to the police. I’m sure they would have been able to analyze your handwriting and have you in cuffs in a heartbeat.”

  “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Oliver said. He sounded more annoyed than anything, and Angie began to doubt her suspicions. Surely if he was guilty, he would have more of a reaction to being accused outright like that?

  “Maybe he’s telling the truth,” Maggie said. “Esme, take a deep breath. Can you think of any way to prove that Oliver is responsible for any of this?”

  The other woman fell silent for a moment. “He’s the only one,” she said at last, her voice hoarse. “You said it yourself, he’s the only one who makes everything fit.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but none of you should really be here,” Oliver said. He shut off his monitor and stood up. “Only one of you even has a student in this school. I could get all three of you removed by the police for trespassing, but I’d really rather not have to go that far. Please leave.”

  “I’m not leaving until you admit to killing my husband.”

  Oliver’s expression darkened. “If anyone killed him,” he said, “it’s you.”

  15

  The accusation seemed to hit Esme like a punch to the gut. “You… I didn’t… He was my husband!”

  “We talked about other things than just the open job position,” Oliver said. “He told me all about your rocky relationship. He even said that you brought up separation a couple of times. Isn’t the spouse always the first suspect in these things?”

  “Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him,” Esme said. She sounded like she was nearing tears again. “You have no right to accuse me of something like that.”

  “You don’t have any right to come in here and accuse me of it either,” he said. He began shoving papers into a messenger bag. “Maybe I should call the police. I bet they don’t know half of the issues the two of you had. I’m sure they would have dug a lot deeper into his case if they knew how tough of a time you two were having. I guess they figured you might not have much of a motive, since he didn’t have a life insurance policy. A divorce would be better for you financially than killing him would be.”

  “He had a life insurance policy,” Esme said. “You’re just making things up.”

  “He stopped paying on it,” Oliver said. He sounded like he was forcing his voice to remain casual. “He told me in an email after I asked about the benefits that the job offered. He said there was a life insurance policy, but it didn’t cover any work-related accidents, and it wasn’t worth the money. He canceled it. I can show you the email, if you’d like.”

  Esme stared at him for a long moment. Angie watched her, half wondering if she really had killed her husband, expecting to get a large payoff once he was gone. But the other woman’s face had a look of stricken sadness on it. If she killed him, then she’s the best actor I’ve ever seen, Angie thought, remembering the tears Esme had shed at the diner.

  Oliver’s words seemed to have deflated something inside of her. “He… didn’t tell me,” she whispered. “He didn’t share that with me. What else didn’t he share? I wasted so much time being petty with him. I should have done better.”

  Oliver sighed. “Look, I didn’t kill your husband. I’m sorry he’s dead, and I wish you the best. But I’m going to ask you one last time to please leave. This is a school, and it isn’t appropriate for you to come here and make these accusations. If you want to contact the police and see if you can convince them to question me again, go ahead. I’ll happily let them read our correspondence. I have nothing to hide, unless you count hiding the fact that I’m looking for a new job from the principal.”

  “Come on,” Maggie said. “We should go, Esme.” The other woman nodded and let herself be guided out of the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Angie told Oliver, then followed them.

  It was a quiet group that walked back out to the van. The three of them climbed in and put on their seat belts. Angie started the engine, but didn’t pull out of the parking lot. She wasn’t sure where to go.

  “I guess maybe the police were right,” Esme said softly. “Maybe it was an accident, and I’m just grasping at straws.”

  Angie was about to agree with her when she remembered the note. She shook her head.

  “No. Lydia wouldn’t have gotten a death threat if it was nothing. We’re missing something.”

  “Angie,” Maggie said, her voice urgent. “Lydia.”

  Angie turned to look at her friend. “What?”

  “All of the pieces fit with her too. Think about it. She could have written the note herself, to convince Jason to go back home. You heard her at the coffee shop. She hates this place. She didn’t say so outright, but it’s obvious she wouldn’t be able to stand living here.”

  “So she wrote herself a death threat? I could maybe see that, I guess. That would mean that Percy’s death really was an accident, and she basically sent us all off on a wild goose chase.”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. What if she killed him?”

  Angie stared at her friend, her eyes widening. “But she doesn’t have a motive.”

  “Was she there when Percy offered Jason the job?”

  Slowly, Angie nodded. “Yeah. They were both talking to me when he dragged them away.”

  “If he acted really excited about it and started talking about moving here… well, it’s a stretch, but maybe she went back to try to talk Percy out of offering the job, and when he wouldn’t capitulate, she lost her temper.”

  She bit her lip and glanced in the back, where Esme was staring at her intently.

&
nbsp; “I… I don’t know. I’ll poke around when I get home, okay?”

  Maggie nodded. After a moment’s hesitation, Esme also nodded.

  “Promise me that you’ll try to find out the truth.”

  “I promise.”

  16

  Angie dropped Esme and Maggie off at the diner, where Maggie’s car was, then drove home. Her mind wandered during the drive as she thought about everything her friend had said. She had never even considered Lydia as a suspect. She had convinced herself that the other woman was practically family, but really, how well did they know her? Jason was the only one who had known her for more than a few days, and she knew her brother always tended to only see the best in people. There was no way he would ever even pause to wonder if someone he loved had committed a crime.

  The note, she decided, was the biggest piece of evidence that they had. If there was some way she could match the handwriting on the note to Lydia’s handwriting… but no, she remembered the scribbled words. There was no way Lydia wouldn’t have tried to disguise her writing if she had written the note herself.

  She parked in front of the house and let herself inside, greeting Petunia and taking off her outerwear before going into the kitchen to get a drink. Lydia and Jason were both in there, playing a board game on the kitchen table. Angie froze, staring at Lydia, her mind still trying to work out the problem of how to prove her guilt — or her innocence.

  “Hey, Ange,” Jason said. “Pull up a chair. You can join us for the next round.”

  “Thanks, but I’m going to take a break for a while. I’ve been around people all day.” She gave her brother a weak smile and poured herself a glass of milk before stepping out of the room. She paused on her way by the living room. Lydia’s purse was sitting on the coffee table, unattended. She remembered the little notebook she had seen the other woman write in on and off during her stay and had an idea.